“I beseech God to bless and prosper you all along in this so long a journey, and to bring you back again with safety and good success; and you may be sure that you will be more welcome to but very few than to, good Sir, your very hearty well-wisher and most humble servant,

“Humphrey Wanly.

“26th April 1720."*

* Printed in the Preface to the Catalogue of the Harleian MSS.

Mr. Hay’s expedition was not entirely successful.  Some of the manuscripts mentioned in the above letter, which Wanley insisted “must be bought,” are clearly not in the Harleian collection, and notably the Greek and Latin MSS. written in letters of gold upon purple parchment.  For this library contains among its choicest treasures no manuscript entirely written upon purple vellum, the Codex Aureus being only partially thus stained.  As we have already seen, during the early ages of Christianity, the Greeks and Romans were in the habit of writing their most precious books in letters of gold and silver on purple-stained vellum, that colour being the distinguishing sign of royalty and greatness.  Purple was only worn by princes, and in this manner of distinguishing the Scriptures was shown the high degree of reverence in which they were held.  The practice was continued during the fifth and three following centuries, although it was so little known in England that when, towards the end of the seventh century, St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, gave a copy of the Gospels ornamented in this manner to York Minster, his biographer described the book as a thing almost miraculous.  Manuscripts entirely composed of leaves of purple vellum are of the greatest rarity, and many are described by palaeographers as purple-stained when they are only partially so.  The age of a manuscript may sometimes be determined among other characteristics by the fineness and whiteness of the vellum, and sometimes by its purple colour.  The MSS. numbered 2788, 2820, and 2821 in the Harleian library are described by Astle as purple-stained, whereas they are only thus painted in places intended to receive the golden letters.  Frequently, only the most important parts, such as the title-pages, prefaces, or a few pages at the beginning of each gospel or the Canon of the Mass, were written on vellum which had been prepared in this manner.

Wanley, as may be seen from the foregoing letter, added to his knowledge of manuscripts a certain fondness for driving a bargain.  He was extremely desirous of obtaining the treasures which he describes so accurately, but he was almost as much bent on getting them cheap as on getting them at all.  This may have been the result of solicitude for his patron’s pocket, for Lord Oxford was ruining himself to enrich his library; but at all events in this matter nature and grace seem to have gone amicably hand in hand.  Wanley’s only comment on the death of the Earl of Sunderland in 1722 is to the effect that it will make rare old books more accessible from the fact of their being less in demand, " so that any gentleman may be permitted to buy an uncommon old book for less than forty or fifty pounds.”